


for nothing kills a man faster than his own head

by watermelons_official



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Gen, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 16:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20138479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watermelons_official/pseuds/watermelons_official
Summary: "It's funny," Peter says, and by funny he means terrifying, haunting and completely and utterly exasperating, "he died right when he had everything he ever wanted."





	for nothing kills a man faster than his own head

**Author's Note:**

> hello my dudes. this is just a big ball of angst ok? it's endgame canon compliant, and it's peter centric. also the tags have a suicidal thoughts tw, the actual thing is just one line, but if it triggers you please avoid it, take care of yourselves 💜

"It's funny," Peter says, and by funny he means terrifying, haunting and completely and utterly, _exasperating_, "he died right when he had everything he ever wanted."  
It's a quiet night. He's been having many of those recently.  
Today, he came back early from patrol, seeing as the people who'd just come back from the dead weren't in a hurry to be doing crime. But now, as he struggles to think of quite literally anything else, his mind keeps drifting back to the day Tony died.  
Peter guesses it's his brain's twisted way to deal with processing it, if the psychology books he's read have gotten anything right. It doesn't make it any easier, though, to see the man he'd idolised for years die over and over again. The details are permanently engraved on his mind, so he's afraid to close his eyes, in fear of yet again seeing Tony's face as he struggled to take his last breath, or to hear his heart slowly give up on beating.  
Which brings us here: his head on May's lap, her fingers running through his hair, as he tells her his deepest fears, and she tries her best to soothe him enough to be able to get the amount of sleep a human needs to function.  
"I just– I don't know." He continues. "It's like the universe had a vendetta against him or something. I mean, he survived so much, he _suffered_ so much, and when he finally got what he wanted, when he was happy and he had a wife and apparently also a _daughter_ I didn't know about, then he just– he _dies._ And now Morgan's mourning her father, and Pepper's mourning her husband, and I–" He cuts himself off mid-sentence, partly because of the strangled sob that escapes him, but also because he doesn't know how to continue.  
He's mourning. That much is clear. But, exactly _what_ is he mourning? What was Tony to him? What was _he_ to _Tony?_ When did his life get so complicated?  
_When you died at the hands of a homicidal maniac from a different planet,_ a voice in his head supplies unhelpfully.  
_No, actually I think it was around the time I got bitten by a radioactive spider that gave me superpowers_, he answers back, and the voice shuts up.  
"What's up, Pete? You spaced out on me." May's voice snaps him out of his thoughts, and he turns his head slightly to look her in the eyes.  
Her gaze is soft, her expression so full of love it makes him want to cry, and her eyes, as usual, don't hold any judgement.  
"Thinking." He mumbles, closing his eyes.  
"About what?" She asks, even though she sounds like she already knows the answer.  
"Maybe... maybe he loved me too." He whispers, and suddenly the finality of it all hits him like a ton of bricks.  
The past tense is there, something he cannot ignore no matter how much he wants to, and it weighs heavily on his chest, the fact that the people he loves drop like flies.  
Death, he decides, is awfully and incredibly unfair, not only to those who die, but more so to those who don't. The ones who live on, their faces permanently set to a frown. The ones that wake up every morning to a half empty bed. The ones who live in fear of forgetting a dead man's face, his voice and his smile. The ones who only have pictures to talk to at 2am after a nightmare.  
And writers compare it to the fall of snow on park benches, or to the wilting petals of a rose, but Peter Parker can only describe it as the crushing feeling of loneliness that settles on his neck, that takes hold of his throat and refuses to let him breathe.  
For death is silence, and it is screams. It is begging, and letting go. It is accepting that your life will never be the same, and welcoming that fact, albeit begrudgingly, but welcoming it nonetheless.  
Death, Peter Parker thinks, is unnecessary and useless, and he makes a mental note to file a complaint.  
Right there in May's arms, he prays to a god he doesn't believe in, that whatever reality Tony Stark's moved on to, he's happy.  
He begs, to a greater good that he doesn't have faith in, because it is the least that he could do for the man who saved their lives, at the expense of his own.  
"I know for a fact he did." May says, a sort of grim finality in her voice, and only when she moves a hand to wipe his tears away does Peter realise he's crying.  
It occurs to him then, that having seen Tony on what was left of the Compound that day, right after coming back to life, was the only thing that kept him going during the fight.  
He wonders if Tony felt the same about him, then decides that he did, because it's late at night and Peter's sad and tired and sleepy, and what he thinks at one in the morning while high on grief and pain and sorrow is nobody's business but his own.  
He's painfully aware of May's hand in his hair, because it's the only thing keeping tethered to earth, and though right now he wouldn't mind losing it, he knows May wouldn't take it that well, so he stays, because, once again, it's the least he could do.  
He falls asleep then, and he dreams of a white palace, a place where everything went right. Uncle Ben is there, along with May and his parents, and Peter smiles, because, if only for a little bit, he's got everything he ever wanted.  
And it feels a bit selfish to want all this to himself, but then he spots Tony, who gives him a wave, and he decides that he doesn't really care.  
He supposes that it ought to be disappointing when he wakes up, but he'll burn that bridge when he gets to it.  
With that thought, he approaches Tony, a grin lighting up his face as the man wraps an arm around his shoulders and guides him over to somewhere else. And Peter lets him, because he'd go anywhere if it meant he got to be with Tony again.  
Even if it's only in his dreams.  
And if when he wakes up, he feels the urge to go accompany Tony to wherever he is, well. No one but him needs to know.

**Author's Note:**

> don't judge this too harshly, please, it was written in one sitting at 4 30 am and english is not my first language. pls leave a comment if you can, they make my day. alright that's it thank you for reading 💙


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